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SYNDICATION, THE CAMERA LIES-PART II AND THE BEAUTY OF SOUTH BEACH
The Voice Behnd The Lens
Writings on Photography and Beyond.
With writer, street, documentary photographer Michael Dubiner.
Big changes here as of December 1, 2004. This column is being syndicated. It can still be read at PixiPort.com. It will now have a wider distribution, at duby.com and in other print media and web sites. I will keep you posted.
SOUTH BEACH AND PHOTOGRAPHIC LIES
Miami Beach, Florida-South Beach, as it is called, is one of the most vibrant places I have ever been to. The beauty, the Latin beat, the skin, the incongruity and best of all the photographic opportunities.
Look carefully at the image above. It is heavily cropped and was designed to show an untruth. I have written on this subject before. Images of any type can show things that are just not true. And that is without any non-traditional methods of alteration such as putting heads on other bodies and the like.
I thought about this issue as I shot this image. I had just read an article which was mostly about the photographer that taped the video of a soldier allegedly shooting an injured Iraqi prisoner. The photographer, Kevin Sites, has the dubious distinction of being both the image maker and a witness. What happened in this war zone, the atmosphere, the attitudes, the fear and everything else will be analyzed to determine if the Marine in question had the lawful right to use deadly force. One of those present to express the truth of those images is the very man whose images raised the controversy to begin with.
Remember, that the image can and sometimes does lie. Sometimes this is inadvertent and, for example, my image of the policeman and dancer above, it is a deliberate misrepresentation. From what I observed, the officer in my image appeared to be on an off duty job and while the officer was friendly, during the hour or so I was sitting there watching, he did nothing inappropriate.
My 6th grade science teacher had a sign above the blackboard. It said:
BELIEVE NONE OF WHAT YOU READ AND ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE.
That was the totality of what I learned in science that year
(The author, Michael Dubiner is a professional image maker and lawyer who lives in Wellington, Florida. His articles will appear twice monthly on PixiPort. His work can be seen at PixiPort.com and at his web site, duby.com.)
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